


Winterland

by sheldrake



Category: Winter Wonderland (Song)
Genre: Christmas, Dystopia, Gen, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheldrake/pseuds/sheldrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We’re neither of us the people we were. It’s hard to remember that there wasn’t always this snow, this cold. There were other things, once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winterland

We sit by the fire, a small pool of light and warmth in an expanse of white that stretches as far as the eye can see. I try to shrink down in my coat, pulling the sleeves over my numb hands. I watch you trying to keep the fire alive.

“We should make plans,” I say.

You look at me, but you say nothing.

“Are you afraid?” I ask. It’s not a fair question, I know. But I can’t help myself. You shake your head, very slightly. I shiver and look away, and I feel ashamed.

The lane is far away from us where we are here, crouching in a small hollow -- the snow crisp and sparkling, then dark and smudged with dirt where we’ve trampled it. But I imagine it, that virgin snow, going on and on. We have so far to walk.

Above us, the stars crackle in a clear black sky. I bite my lip.

“He’s going to find us,” I say. “I know it.”

“He won’t find us.”

“How do you know?”

“We left the lane. He won’t find us.”

“But--”

“We’re faster than him. We can run. He won’t catch us.”

He (it -- that thing) doesn’t need to rest, though. We got as far as we could, across the snow-covered fields, but eventually we had to stop before we collapsed. Before I collapsed. You could probably have gone on a little further, although you’d never admit it, for my sake. You’re kind like that. Sometimes, I wish you weren’t.

“We made him,” I say, and you look at me.

“We had to. You know that.”

I sit, trying not to think about what happened in the meadow. The birds were coming. You had fallen, tripped on something hidden in the snow, and scraped the side of your face. Just a scratch, but that’s enough for them. They can smell blood over great distances, and then they come. Just one, at first, and then more. It wasn’t long before we heard its faint, mournful cry. I saw you turn to me, your eyes wide. “Run!” you said. “Get away! It’s me they’ll follow, not you.”

I think I hated you for a second. I was so angry.

“Don’t you dare!” I said. “You’re not leaving me.”

I grabbed your hand and pulled at you, and we both ran, desperately, faster than I’ve ever run. But there was no point. We both knew it.

“Stop!” you said, and bent over with your hands on your knees, trying get your breath. I looked behind. The bird was still small, hardly more than a speck in the distance, but it was gaining on us all the time.

“We have to do it,” you said. I stared at you.

“Maybe there’s something else we can…”

But you shook your head. There was nothing. Only one thing was ever any good against the birds, and the thought of it made me feel sick. Silently, we dropped to our knees and began scraping up snow in great handfuls. We wore no gloves and our skin was red-raw, but we worked quickly, heaping it into a great mound between us. Higher and higher we built it, until it was as tall as us, or nearly. All the time, the black dot that was the great bird grew bigger in the distant white sky.

“Quickly now,” you said, gathering up a handful of snow and pressing it into a rough ball between your hands. We worked together, rolling it along the ground until it was a misshapen sphere, about the size of a human head. You took it and set it on the top of our tall mound. In the white snow-light, it cast a long, dark shadow.

“What shall we give it?” I asked. “It needs gifts.”

“He,” you said, absent-mindedly. “Not it.” You stood, thinking. I began to shake with fear and frustration.

“Here,” I said, and began to pull off my coat. A stupid idea, but I was desperate. 

“Not that,” you said. “Don’t be silly. You won’t last five minutes without it. Anyway, it won’t do.”

“Well, we need something!” I said, and my voice was shrill. “ _What_ , then?”

You looked up suddenly and pointed at my throat. “That!” My hand went instinctively to the pendant I always wore. “Give him that. He’ll like that.”

“I…” My voice broke. It was so silly. It was just a necklace. “Yes, all right.”

I ripped it off before I had time to think. The flimsy clasp broke easily. I went over to the mound and quickly laid it where the neck would be if it were a person, pressing the ends of the leather string into the snow to make it stay. I let go, and stepped back. 

“Now you,” I said, and my voice sounded harsh. I was sad and angry and afraid, and I didn’t want to suffer alone. “Go on. You’ve got to give it something.”

“Yes.” 

You walked up to it, the thing, and then you reached up into your own hair, and pulled out a handful. It must have hurt very much. But you said nothing, just made a stifled noise, the dark tufts gripped tight in your hand. I winced. You took the hair, quickly dividing it into strands, and you screwed up the strands into little knots that you poked into holes in the snow. Two black holes in the head for eyes, one for a nose. A grinning semi-circle of smaller ones for a mouth. It didn’t take long.

“There,” you said, stepping back. Your hand was shaking. “Now. Who is he? We have to say it.”

I stared at the thing in the snow. It filled me with horror, and I hardly knew why. I shook my head. “It doesn’t look like… like...”

“Say it! We’ll say it together.”

“I can’t!”

You came closer to me then, and took my hand. “It’s all right,” you said. “It’s all going to be all right. Close your eyes, and we’ll say it.”

I closed my eyes and gripped your hand tightly. You counted to three. Together, we name it. Him.

As we spoke, we heard something beginning -- a strange creaking; a breathy, damp noise like an old man coughing up fluid. We didn’t wait. We turned and ran, and we did not look behind us. We ran for a long time. When we stopped at last, and dared to look after all, we saw nothing. No slow, lumbering figure. And no black shape on the horizon. There was nothing at all to be seen, and nothing to be heard. We went on anyway -- the further away from the meadow, we thought, the better. We walked until we couldn’t walk any longer, and then we stopped and built the fire.

I look at you now, and you’re the worse for wear, with your scratched face, your ragged hair. I wonder how I look, these days, but I’ve no way of knowing. A mess, I suppose. I know I’m dirty and my bones show under the skin. We’re neither of us the people we were. It’s hard to remember that there wasn’t always this snow, this cold. There were other things once.

“Listen,” you’re saying, poking the fire with a stick as you speak. “We’ll get to somewhere that’s somewhere, very soon. You’ll see. A town or…” You look up at me. “Proper food to eat! Think about that. A roof over our heads. People. We’ll be safe.”

“Sounds lovely,” I say, playing along. “A change of clothes would be nice. And a real bed! Remember what that felt like?”

You smile quickly, and look back into the fire. “I”m sorry about your pendant.”

I shrug. “It was just a necklace.”

“We’ll find them all soon,” you say. “All those things. We must. And then, maybe I can find you something to replace it, or--”

“We should get married,” I say. I don’t know where that came from. I have no idea. What a ridiculous thing to say. I’m embarrassed.

But you’re looking across at me, the charred stick forgotten in your hand. There is a strange light in your eyes. You’re really smiling, now, properly. You look almost like you used to.

“Yes!” You begin to laugh, and then you stop. “Yes, of course we should! When we find the town, that’s just what we’ll do. I--”

You stop speaking suddenly, just as I hiss at you, quick and sharp, to be quiet. I get to my feet, my heart thudding in my chest. 

“Did you hear it?”

You nod. We both wait, the fire and everything else forgotten. Nothing. We listen so hard, I think we might die of it. I feel stretched as taut as a bowstring. Then, very faint in the distance, we hear it again. A faint, tinkling, silvery noise. A noise from long ago, from before the snow came and everything changed.

We hear sleigh bells, ringing.


End file.
